Ok, I always ask this question to myself.
When it comes to SharePoint OOTB features VS C# custom development, where exactly do you draw the line?
Just post your thoughts... (even if you think this question is ridiculous :-P)
I can't recall one single project where SP "OOTB"...
Fulfilled the client requirements entirely (except for the most trivial cases). In the case of changing requirements this often led to over-complicated hacks or eventual re-write as some "custom development".
SharePoint Designer didn't make the problem harder and less maintainable. Worst. Product. Ever.
Edit: Actually, now that I am "forcing" myself to remember it, I think it all devolved to some hack or issue avoidance to get around some limitation or another. The difference is where the hack is encountered and how easy it is to perform said counter-measure(s).
Not sure how you're going to get anything like a specific answer to this, shouldn't it be decided on a case by case basis?
Surely its just "If the cost of the custom development is less than the cost of 'living with it as is" then develop, or not?
In SharePoint there are many customizations that can be done without having to develop (if you are referring to 'custom development' as C# code.
Several thing can be done using Sharepoint Designer, and I wouldn't know if those are to be considered custom development.....
I have created websites out of VS, changing basic stuff with Designer, and I've created workflows with WSS as the UI... so it also depend on what you want to accomplish...
Related
We are currently in the process of drawing up a solution for an existing client, creating a number of eServices. The client currently have MOSS 2007. The proposed solution is to use MOSS as the launching pad for the eServices…
The requirement involves drawing up several online forms which provide registration facilities as well as facilitating a workflow of some sort. I have been told that the proposed solution requires complex web forms.
Most are complex forms with parent child details that have multiple windows. The proposed solution is to do some bespoke development, developing ASP .NET forms. These forms would be deployed under the _layouts folder of the current MOSS portal, inheriting the master page design on the current site.
I have been told that this approach make development and deployment more simple, as well has having ‘complete integration’ with MOSS.
My questions are:
Is this the best way to leverage SharePoint – it seems like the proposed solution is not leveraging MOSS at all..! I thought perhaps utilizing Web Parts would be better, but I have been told that this is more complex and developing more smarter intuitive UI is more difficult. Is this really the case? If not, what should be the recommended approach?
We will be utilizing Ultimus as the workflow engine. However, I have been recommended K2 Workflows. Anyone used both/have any opinions on either?
Many thanks in advance!
Kind Regards,
If they have MOSS 2007 Enterprise, you might consider if web rendered InfoPath forms can meet your needs for "complex web forms". When it comes down to it, probably all of these technologies can meet the neeed it is just a matter of what skill sets you and your customer have and how that will facilitate keeping this solution up to date.
Asim, what they propose is a possible solution. They can however provide the same functionality by making use of webparts. With the details you are giving us that isn't really possible to decide which option would be easier. I used both approaches in the same project depending on the requirements of each functionality.
I can understand that it doesn't seem like they are leveraging MOSS, but they actually are building pages within the context of MOSS.
I haven't really heard about Ultimus, I did use K2 in a proof of concept and I was quite happy with it. Then again, choosing the right workflow solution depends on your requirements.
I know next to nothing about SharePoint, so maybe this isn't something you can/should do, or maybe it's something completely trivial, I don't know, but we have a custom in-house help desk application at work, and I'm wondering if it can be integrated into our help desk SharePoint site somehow?
I really don't know what's possible with SharePoint, so any ideas or thoughts on this matter would be appreciated.
The short answer is yes but the amount of time required to make this work will be directly related to your flexibility / needs. Would you be satisfied with default SharePoint lists / forms? Do you need to retrieve and update data hosted in an external source? Do you really need this integrated with SharePoint or simply hosted under the same URL?
I've found that SharePoint can do anything but the time required to make it meet the needs of a demanding/inflexible business user is sometimes significant.
There is also the issue of doing right or simply making it work. Making it work buys you some time initially but you can easily dig yourself a very deep hole that is difficult to escape. My suggestion is to keep the solution as simple and maintainable as possible.
Pretty much anything that can go on a webform can go in a webpart - with obvious complications, but yes it would work. Look into webpart development.
I would try to stick to the features that SharePoint is already offering you. You can achieve a lot by using them, and enriching them with a few simple workflows.
If you want to add some workflow logic to your solution, then try to avoid the designer workflows, since they have some issues when it comes to deployment(in short: you cant). So even if it looks easier to design them in Designer, you will pay a price later when you want to deploy them to production (You have a staging/development enviroment?)
In general I would also agree with mayos answer
Anything is possible...but check out the MSDN reference for integrating with SharePoint:
Integration with Office SharePoint Server
What would make development with SharePoint easier?
A better product.
Right now it is to many things that doesn't behave as a development environment should.
Dispose of objects
Performance of traversing small lists with 3000/4000 items
Lack of support of transactions
Hopefully next version will have the SQLServer based lists where you can have transactional support and better performance......
Bill G raised the question in feb 2008 that it is something strange with Sharepoint that you get problems when you have 3000 items in a list and SQL Server easily supports million of items....
The build and deployment process needs to be simplified. There are numerous tools available to create WSP files, but they are all decent at one thing another, but you ultimately need to extend or rework the solution WSP deployment package for you environment.
Standard HTML and better support for the DOM.
Informative error messages.
While easier debugging and less XML are very tempting (as people suggested), I would settle for something much more modest.
SharePoint usually "swallows" exceptions or other error messages. Very often when a customized page or a web part fails, you get an obscure 'page cannot be displayed' message. With luck, the designer will direct you to the problem, or you might find some details on the logs or the system event viewer. But in many cases you have nothing.
Examples - Business data catalog xml monstrosity that worked on the editor but not on the site, xml web parts that fail randomly, xsl typos or mistakes, etc. All take much longer to find than they should, and some are impossible to debug.
Remote Deployment:
- 1 central Sharepoint, and transparent remote debugging.
Less XML (schema.xml etc).
Making the dev process more like "traditional" asp.net development, in other words making the integration with VS better. You should develop against SharePoint from within VS not from within SharePoint (ie SPD).
SPVisualDev on codeplex has made that process better but I hope (an I say hope) for better support within VS2010 together with SP2010.
Should check out #SPDevWiki's page on this also http://www.sharepointdevwiki.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=7340352
Less people trying to abuse the product would make things a lot easier too ;)
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I'm trying to wrap my head around SharePoint. Why is it good? Why is it bad?
At a glance it appears to offer some incredible collaboration tools. However, the cost looks astronomical and it seems to be rigid & difficult to customize.
To those who've worked with SharePoint; please describe something good and something bad about it.
Pros:
Document management is its most well-known
function and integrates extremely
well with Office 2007.
Create group calendars that can be
overlayed onto your personal Outlook
and managed on the web.
Notifications in response to certain
actions on the group website
Wiki-type functionality with full
integration into the Office stack.
Full database backend which gives
you the reliability and safety of a
true RDBMS.
Extremely customizable if you choose
to develop custom websites using
ASP.NET (not the built-in wizard/gui
editor).
Form-data collection
Cons:
Freebie version is somewhat limited
on customization.
How to handle multiple editors to a
single file is not obvious.
Workflow for offline editing of
documents is non-obvious.
Very steep learning curve to use it
the right way.
Getting people to use it is like
getting people to go to the dentist.
Out-of-the-box templates don't do a
lot.
Customizing without writing code
really limits your options.
Integration with older versions of
office is ugly
Mac integration is non-existant (has
this changed recently?)
It has pretty good Office 2007 integration. As an example, Excel understands when you have a file checked out and will let you check it in (with comments) when you close it. The document management features simplistic version control (although it's not required; you can go with a single version for each file).
In SharePoint, everything is essentially a list internally and it's very easy to create a custom one. On a related note, I haven't used either yet, but it supposedly works well with workflows and InfoPath.
On the downside, it's pretty much a resource beast. It requires multiple machines with powerful specs, particularly if you want to "really" use it for document management and to be the backbone of your intranet/internet site. It scales to an extent, but it's not pretty from my vantage point.
Customizing it presents it's own challenges. You really need people focused on it full time, as both administration and customization require their own impressive learning curves.
Lastly, some of the out of the box parts are poorly implemented. The wiki is a prime example; it's basically useless in my opinion. So one thing to keep in mind is that some may consider SharePoint as a whole package as "best in class" (not saying I do!), its individual features often are not.
Good
Out of the box, it offers a ton of functionality and power, even for the stock web parts. Just creating a library of documents that anyone can open/edit/upload to is simple...even for those non-web-savvy amongst us.
Bad
Pretty much everything else.
The "Discussion Board" is a glorified Outlook email chain.
The disconnect between achieving similar results in SharePoint Designer 2007 and using the web interface are jarring and annoying
Attempting to customize the look and feel of a SharePoint site usually ends in complete disaster. Especially with WSS 3.0.
The nickel & diming scheme between the WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 tiers is absolutely painful; WSS 3.0 is just barely functional enough to be extremely frustrating to use
Changing MS styles is almost impossible due to their horribly-laid-out and obnoxiously large CSS file.
IT IS 2009...GET RID OF THE TABLES FOR NON-TABULAR DATA ALREADY!
It's a beast to use. And handing two complete rebranding projects for two totally different areas of the company is driving me to the point of a nervous breakdown. Especially when opening the core.css file occasionally results in all the styles I've redefined getting reset to the defaults. Without anything done by me other than just OPENING the file. And there is no ability to undo these changes.
Good thing: Great communication tool. Instead of sending out a company wide email you can post an announcement to your SharePoint site. Users can subscribe to an RSS feed of the announcements or have a email alert sent to them when the list is updated.
Bad thing: Error messages displayed on a SharePoint site are generic and the link to help resolve the issue rarely is of any help.
Good:
It can be a great collaboration tool. Beginning developing for sharepoint is simple, assuming you are familar with ASP.NET webparts.
Bad:
The development lifecycle isn't fully implemented. There are no built-in facilities for testing, among other things.
SharePoint is evolving and becoming a better collaboration tool for Microsoft Office environments. It plays well in a small to medium sized business setting. It is critical to implement “best practices” on setup; otherwise it will quickly become a nightmare to maintain and to use.
For “best practices” here are two books that I recommend for SharePoint 2007:
Essential SharePoint 2007
Sharepoint 2007
A lot of the cool things in Sharepoint are avaialable in Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0, which is free with windows server 2003/2008. All you need extra is a license for SQL Server 2000 and later, which most mirosoft shops have. In WSS you can do document management, workflows, custom sites, blogs, wiki's, etc.
If you need Excel Services, Forms Server, CMS, or some of the other MOSS features, then that's another thing. And yes, it does cost a lot of money, but it' cheaper than doing it from scratch in most cases.
Pluses:
- Great object model.
- A lot of good features just come out of the box.
Minuses:
- Steap learning curve to do things the right way.
- It's very easy to hang yourself by doing things the wrong way.
- Debugging and deployment is about as pleasurable as root canal.
good :
A lot of things can be done. Wokflowks, InfoPath forms, Excel Services, Business Data Catalogs and etc.
Bad :
You won't be able to do these described easily. Must have sharepoint administrative and development skills for good solutions that don't improve quickly.
If you have a license for Microsoft Server 2003 then you can install the standalone version of Sharepoint for FREE!
Download Sharepoint
The install is very simple when using the internal database.
Microsoft Office Sharepoint Designer 2007 is a must have for any customization.
I have created a couple Company Intranets using Sharepoint and have been very pleased with its features.
Microsoft Office 2007 interfaces nicely with sharepoint.
I have found Sharepoint to be very powerful and easy to learn. There are lots of people developing sites using sharepoint. The level of customization is awesome. The simplest customization is done in your browser, the next level is using Microsoft Sharepoint Designer 2007, and finally using Visual Studio to create new apps(webparts).
I am total beginner in SharePoint and I need some help in starting a project. I have to develop publishing site that will be delivered to the client. I would like to give client deployment experience like he would get when deploying standard ASP.NET application as much as possible. I plan to use Visual Studio 2008 with SharePoint extensions and maybe WSPBuilder or some other tools.
I also need help in structuring whole project.
Here is what I plan to do:
1. Develop minimal site definition
2. Create site from this defionition. How should I do this from code ? Use SharePoint Feature ? How should I activate it ?
3. Develop all the needed infrastructure for the site (master page, layouts, content types, ...) as SharePoint Features.
Is this correct and how should I develop all those parts so I can make a some kind install script so can client create get complete site with one click ?
Site definitions are complex no question about it, but they are very useful if you need to deploy to unrelated enviornments. If you are staying on the same server farm, maybe site definition is overkill. If you are going between domains (i.e. test & prod, then maybe they are worth looking into).
Another advantage to site definitions, esp. if delivering to a client is it feels more like a traditional deliverable. They will have a bunch of files (hopefully in source control) that are their custom site. I think that gives IT dept's a much warmer feeling than an XML file created from the SharePoint UI.
Another benefit of site definitions are you have a lot more control over the pages that make up the site. IMHO its easier to add master pages & custom CSS via site defintion that site template.
I am curious as to what are the 'moving parts' to the site you are trying to deliver? I think that answering that question will determine how to define the project's structure.
Generally, I think you are on the right track. Features and solutions are a must. I would stay away from VSeWSS, its buggy and clunky and generally terrible if you are trying to do anything complex. It tries to be so smart, that it leaves you no control.
That said, it really depends on what you are trying to do. If you are going to build a solution to deploy to the GAC with one assembly, and only building features supported by vsewss you may be fine.
If however, you want to develop, say a timer job wiring that into the VSeWSS feature framework gets tough. Also, if you need multiple assemblies in the solution. YMMV, but I had to junk it and find of a more flexible solution (hello NANT).
A lot of the work you will end up doing is building and checking, and re-checking XML configuration files. Bookmark the Feature Schema reference page on MSDN, you will be spending a lot of time going through it.
Finally, yes, if you have all of the parts packaged as features you should be able to develop a nice install script. Ultimately the script will need to call the STSADM (there are some really nice STSADM extensions here) commands necessary to create the site structure, add & deploy the solution & activate the features. You can start with a batch file, and get as complicated as you want.
Personally I don't find that creating a site definition is really that useful for the sites I have built. They can be very tricky to set up, because of their complex nature.
What I do is use the standard Publishing Site and then using features to add my additional componets (deployed via a SharePoint solution).
You can use Feature Stapling to connect up the feature to the Publishing Site creation.
I've also just done a blog post on how to programmatically modify the workflow which is created by default: http://www.aaron-powell.com/blog/february-2009/programmatically-modifying-sharepoint-workflows.aspx (that also has a link in the comments off to the Feature Stapling concept).
Then I use a combination of SharePoint Solution Installer (http://www.codeplex.com/sharepointinstaller) and batch files to install the components. SSI for all the SharePoint database level installs and batch files for the file system stuff.
Adding another answer, because I have more than 300 characters worth of stuff to say :(
RE: SharePoint solutions generator, again I would say your mileage may vary.
The biggest issue with SharePoint dev is managing all of the "magic strings" across the various configuration files. GUIDs and Fully Qualified Assembly names are the spit and glue that hold the whole thing together, and although it all makes sense its very difficult to manage.
The current crop of tool all try and alleviate the complexity of managing these things, but they require that you work in a certain way, so the tool knows how to inject the appropriate plumbing.
If you plan on doing a lot of work with SharePoint it really behooves you too learn to manage the plumbing yourself. Its painful up front, but really pays dividends.
Basically, I suggest you spend your time learning the platform and not the tools. Once you know the platform, using the tools will be much easier.
If you are doing this as a one-off engagement and just want to get it done, I'm sure you can get any of the tools you've mentioned to do the trick.
I would agree with the use of the out of the box publishing site definition, and then customizing it using Site Collection features (Master Page, Page Layouts, CSS) and site features (create lists, pages, sub sites, defining master pages of sites, etc...).
Feature stapling is great when you want to customize new sites (allow user to create new sites) of well known site templates, like customize the "My Site" look and feel. In this case I don’t think its very useful.
As a tool to help this task, I personally use STSDEV (http://www.codeplex.com/stsdev) to help in creating, programming, debugging and deploying my Sharepoint solutions.
First it creates a good project for Visual Studio (clean, or with some nice "starting point" definitions). Then it includes some “build configurations” that really helps with install, deploy and upgrade in the development machine.